The Philippines premier investment generating agency must have enough flexibility to be able to adjust to supervening events like matching a new generous package of incentives being granted by a competitor country to be able to retain investors and attract more, a top government official said.

Trade and Industry undersecretary and Board of Investments (BoI) managing head Elmer C. Hernandez said the country has an antiquated investments law under Executive Order 226 or the Omnibus Investments Code, which was drafted in 1987 under then President Corazon Aquino.

“EO 226 is no longer attuned with the times because it was crafted 23 years ago and the situation then was very different from the situation now. We need a dynamic Omnibus Investments Code to get ahead or counter competition,” Hernandez said.

He noted that EO 226, which has remained the country’s investments Bible, still speaks of unused capacity and import substitution when these have been made irrelevant by the World Trade Organization.

EO 226 does not provide any flexibility to the BoI, the government’s premier investment generating agency, to adjust to supervening events like matching incentives being offered by a competitor country.

“The only flexibility we have is through the Investment Priorities Plan, which identifies the priority sectors eligible for incentives, but in terms of incentives, none,” Hernandez said.

“We don’t want to abrogate the powers of Congress in terms of granting fiscal incentives, but as an investment promotion agency it should be given enough flexibility to adjust to supervening events like matching an incentive being offered by a competitor country to an investor,” Hernandez said.